Call it moviegoers hungry for a sassy robot and some daring acts of galactic rebellion. For the second Christmas movie season in a row a "Star Wars" franchise film has dominated the holiday box office. Also for the second year in a row, North American ticket sales are projected to exceed $11 billion, according to the entertainment data firm ComScore. And as the year comes to a close, 2016 is expected to see a 1.5% increase in ticket sales over 2015 ($11.3 billion versus $11.1 billion). That puts the Gareth Edwards-directed action flick, set just before the events of George Lucas' 1970s trilogy, well above the Disney film's approximately $200-million production budget.

Call it moviegoers hungry for a sassy robot and some daring acts of galactic rebellion. Buena Vista's "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" vanquished all others in its second week of wide release, hauling in $64.4 million over the three-day holiday weekend, and is expected to pull in nearly $32 million more on Monday, which for many is also a holiday. That should bring its four-day holiday take to an estimated $96.1 million and its total domestic box office to $286.4 million -- with an additional $237.4 million from international screens. The Gareth Edwards-directed action flick, set just before the events of George Lucas' 1970s trilogy, is already well above its approximately $200-million production budget. Universal's "Sing," an animated musical comedy about the adventures of a singing pig named Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) and a koala bear who is in over his head (Matthew McConaughey), pulled in $35.3 million in domestic box office over the three-day weekend.

"Warcraft," the critically panned video game-inspired film from Legendary Entertainment, made more than six times as much money in China as it did in the U.S. during its opening weekend, and it had observers including Jackie Chan saying it could be the harbinger of a new age in blockbuster filmmaking. That's undoubtedly a historic split for a Hollywood film -- although it's not unusual for a movie to make more in China than at home -- and certainly something that could happen more as China's rapidly growing box office catches up with the U.S. Rather, "Warcraft" is just a movie with several unique factors that gave it a much bigger potential audience in China than anywhere else. The world is big, interests are regional, and Chinese companies have certain competitive (or anticompetitive) advantages that Hollywood studios don't, like a restriction on foreign competition and the ability to own theater chains. As a result of such factors, "Warcraft" blew the doors down in China, but it didn't really blaze a trail that too many other movies could realistically follow. China is a nearly 8 billion -- and growing -- movie market with only 34 slots for Western films, so naturally Hollywood is going to produce its megabudget blockbusters with that in mind, taking steps not to offend the Chinese state censors that have to approve every imported film.